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Research groups

Molly Stevens

FREng FRS


John Black Professor of Bionanoscience

  • Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery

Professor Molly Stevens FREng FRS joined as the John Black Professor of Bionanoscience in April 2023 at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics, and Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery. Prof Stevens obtained her PhD at the University of Nottingham, did her postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and led a highly interdisciplinary research programme at Imperial College London from 2004-2023 where she still holds a part-time position. Since 2015, she has also been part-time Professor of Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine in the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.

Professor Stevens is an international leader in ground-breaking biosensing technologies, transformative regenerative medicine and advanced therapeutics approaches; has published extensively (over 400 papers and H-index over 100) in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Nanotechnologyand Nature Materials; and was named a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field Research. She is a serial entrepreneur and has significant expertise and experience in commercialisation of devices, with numerous patents filed and 4 spin-out companies based on her research.

Professor Stevens has won >40 awards, including the Novo Nordisk Award in 2023, the MRS Mid-Career Researcher Award in 2022, and the American Chemical Society Award in Colloid Chemistry in 2020. Prof Stevens is a Fellow of 8 Professional Bodies, including the Royal Society (FRS) and Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), and is also a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Engineering and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Amongst many leadership roles, Professor Stevens is Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Hub for Acellular Smart Materials and Deputy Director of the EPSRC-Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration i-sense for biosensing.

Professor Stevens’ research programme uses innovative bioengineering approaches to pursue the vision of solving key problems in regenerative medicine, biosensing and therapeutics. The Stevens Group’s biomaterial innovations are also applied to soft robotics, and to the interface between living and non-living matter, and are underpinned by collaborations with molecular dynamics experts and data scientists in the digital health field. This work is inherently interdisciplinary, so the Stevens Group is made up of a diverse cast of materials scientists, engineers, chemists, biologists, physicists and surgeons.

Find out more about our key focus areas on the Stevens Group webpage.

The Stevens Group’s funding portfolio is highly diverse, and includes funding from ERC (Advanced Grant), UKRI (EPSRC and MRC), Royal Academy of Engineering, Horizon 2020, The Wellcome Trust, National Institute for Health Research, Cancer Research UK, Rosetrees Trust and others.